Residents show up at city council hearing to protest King Street bike lanes

Although the issue was not on the docket at a city council hearing Saturday, residents took more than two hours of the public comment period to air their views on the matter. Afterward, Mayor Bill Euille called it the longest open microphone session for residents that he could recall.

Deputy City Attorney Chris Spera said residents asked for a direct appeal of the decision to city council earlier this month. In return, city attorneys dug up a rarely used provision of city code — added in 1963 — that allows residents to appeal any decision altering public parking to the traffic and parking board, which in turn sends a recommendation to city council.

Some people continue to pretend that this is about safety

King Street resident Louise Welch is happy officials chose to revisit the debate over bike lanes because she fears the addition would make the road less safe. Advocates and officials, though, advertise bike lanes as a traffic-calming measure.

“We hope that’s not just them appeasing us; I hope it is a real chance to raise our concerns relating to safety and so forth,” Welch said. “[The] road is just too narrow. They’re trying to put something there that doesn’t work.”

Narrowness has nothing to do with it since parking will be removed and a bike lane put in its place.

Though most neighborhood residents have driveways, on-street parking needs to be available, she argued.

Bingo.

“Sometimes my husband needs to be picked up to take him to cardiac rehab when I can’t be there, and [without street parking], the car would sit protruding into traffic,” she said. “Or if I have a contractor come, if they have big trucks, they’d have to park across the street … and carry their equipment or a toilet or something across King Street.”

Temporary parking in the bike lane will be allowed, especially for the situation she's described - though why wouldn't their driveway work for either of those? Regardless, we don't need to leave all that parking for the handful of times that these situations come along. It's incredibly inefficient.

The city traffic and parking board will hold its next meeting February 24.

The kicker is that many of these people don't have King Street addresses. They have North Terrace View addresses. King street is in their back yard. If you want to geek out, look at Google Street View. See those eight foot security fences along King Street? That's the parking we're talking about.

To be fair, North Terrace View is the low side of their property, so toilet carrying would need to happen uphill, instead of in their "alley" of King Street.

To be really fair, the most vocal opponent, Mr. F.H. Buckley, does have a King Street address. But for him, the compromise saves the parking just west of his house.

So, in summation, people on North Terrace View want to save King Street parking. People on King Street already have their parking saved.

Reminds me of a Dale Gribble quote on King of the Hill:

"Listen! I've never been able to say this in my whole life, but as of 2 p.m. yesterday, I am a taxpayer. And I demand $36 worth of service. I know the chain of command, starting with your supervisor, Franklin Thomas, all the way up to the under-intendent of Transportation, Edward Dibble, whose daughters, Pat and Ellie, played ladybug soccer with the daughters of the President of the United States. And I'm not afraid to make some phone calls. I'm your worst nightmare. I have a three-line phone, and absolutely nothing at all to do with my time!"

An aside: Back in the day, Johnny Hardwick (the voice of Dale) and I used to work together. He was one of the nicest guys in a business that tends to attract jerks. He was friends with Rev. Horton Heat and when he found out I was a fan, he invited me to play golf with them. I was so pleased to see him make it in Hollywood and to make enough money that he doesn't really have to work anymore. Couldn't have happened to a nicer - or funnier - guy. There's a lot of Johnny in Dale (and Hank too).

How funny. When the New Mexico bike lane was being debated, ANC Commissioner Mike Gold said that if the lane was installed there would be "Armageddon." There have been no accidents along this stretch over the past 3 months.

The other day, I was riding down the lane and started singing "Armageddon, Armageddon," and my son from the back of the bike asked me what I was talking about. It was hard to

Holding the baby was a nice touch and if those who opposed the NM lanes were of child rearing age, they would have tried that.

@Fong Fong -- I use the New Mexico lanes a couple of times a week to drop off my son at child care, and I feel a lot safer having him in the iBert seat with bike lanes painted than I would have before (it's a relatively new childcare arrangement).

To be honest, it's a much nicer experience to drive NM Ave with the lanes, too.